Mixing Both Models - Accent CMS

The two storage models are not alternatives you must choose between site-wide. They coexist freely in the same content tree, and mixing them is the expected mode of operation for sites that grow organically: a media-rich home page as a folder, a long tail of text pages as flat files.

Both models produce the same Page struct internally. Hierarchy, collections, taxonomy, feeds, and static builds all work identically regardless of how a page is stored – the storage model is an authoring convenience, invisible to the rest of the engine.

A mixed tree

content/
  01.home/
    default.md              # folder page -> /home
    hero.jpg                # page-local media
    _hero/
      default.md            # page module
  02.blog/
    default.md              # folder page -> /blog
    01.first-post/
      default.md            # folder page -> /blog/first-post
  changelog.md              # file page -> /changelog
  error/
    404.md                  # file page -> /error/404

All of these load correctly. The hierarchy sees /home, /blog, /changelog, and /error as children of /. A page loaded from 01.home/default.md and one loaded from changelog.md are indistinguishable once parsed.

The same task in each model

The models differ only in where a page’s parts live. The table below maps the three everyday authoring tasks across both:

Task	Folder page	File page
Create a page	`content/01.about/default.md`	`content/about.md`
Attach media	drop the file beside the index (`01.about/team.jpg`)	put it in a companion directory (`about/team.jpg`)
Add a module	`_`-prefixed subdirectory (`01.about/_team/default.md`)	module file or directory in the companion folder (`about/_team.md`)
Set sort order	numeric prefix on the directory (`01.about/`)	numeric prefix on the file (`01.about.md`) or `menu.order`

Full details live in the Folder Pages and File Pages guides.

Avoiding collisions

A folder page and a file page can resolve to the same URL. If both about/default.md and about.md exist in the same directory, they both map to /about. When that happens the scanner logs a warning and keeps the file that sorts later alphabetically; the other is dropped.

This is never something you want by accident. Pick one form per URL slug:

Use about.md or about/default.md, not both.
If a page needs to grow from a flat file into a folder (because it gained media or modules), convert it – move about.md to about/default.md and delete the original – rather than leaving both in place.

Choosing per page

A useful rule of thumb:

Reach for a folder page when a page owns assets or is composed of modules.
Reach for a file page when a page is just text.

Consistency still helps authors predict where things live, so many sites lean on one model and use the other only where it clearly pays off. See Choosing a Model in the chapter overview for the full decision guidance.